Baker of Many Breads, but Lover of One

''For me,'' he said the other day in his little office, ''bread is rye bread, although I admit that these days it's not the fashionable thing in New York. It's focaccia, ciabatta, sourdough, country French, artisan bread, whatever artisan bread is. We sell to all the big guys -- Zabar's, Dean & Deluca, Balducci's -- but they don't buy a lot of rye bread these days.

''They're missing out on the best.''

Orwasher's Bakery still makes rye, in several styles, makes it the old-fashioned way, by hand, using a rye sour starter that has never been remade in 80 years, and bakes it in brick-hearth ovens in the shop's basement. It has been at it since 1916, for three generations, at the same address, 308 East 78th Street, in what used to be the Hungarian section of Yorkville. You can buy bread upstairs off old wooden shelves, seven days a week.

To listen to Mr. Orwasher talk, you would think he learned to bake in Germany. He rattles off the ingredients -- just yeast, salt, flour, water, sour. Period. No bases, no shortcuts, no enhancers, no emulsifiers.

''I don't know what an emulsifier is, actually,'' he said.

A few years ago, Mr. Orwasher, who learned to bake from his father and is now 47, tried a new convection oven, but it didn't last long. He took one look at the first rack of rolls and said, ''Forget it,'' he recalled with a grimace, because ''the things blew up into fluffy soft yuck.''

Two of his ovens are ancient affairs, rebuilt several times, that burned wood when first built, then coal, now oil. A third, all shiny stainless steel, shares one thing with the older ones, a base made of fire bricks, but it is used for other products, like Irish soda bread and challah, not for rye.

Rye dough is blended in an electric mixer from the 1920's, with a dough hook that has been broken and welded many times. It is better for rye flour, Mr. Orwasher said, because it is slower. The dough is kneaded by hand. It is proofed -- allowed to rise -- in large, flat wooden boxes. Orwasher's makes its own these days, because it can no longer find a commercial source.

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''Ovens have personalities,'' he said, standing in front of one of his temperamental creatures. ''They all have hot spots, cool spots. In this one, for example, you get the best results with challah back on the right.''

Mr. Orwasher is a feinschmecker who frets over the quality of his raw materials. He complains that flour is too inconsistent. He buys caraway seeds only from the Netherlands -- ''not Egypt,'' he said, ''not as good'' -- seedless raisins from California and the best Australian and Dutch poppy seeds.

His own favorite is neither the rye with charred onion flakes on the outside and more onions in the center, nor the Russian dark rye, nor even the raisin pumpernickel that his father, Louis, introduced to New York in 1945, after serving in the Army as a baker. What he likes best is the 10-pound ''superseeded'' rye, a tawny, tangy loaf extra-rich in caraway seeds.

''I hope the superseeded is never superseded,'' he said, wincing.

For a time, it was. Even traditionalists like Orwasher's customers watch television, and when ''Seinfeld'' did an episode about marble rye, which is a loaf of rye and wheat dough swirled together, marble rye was the order of the day. For a week or so.